Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson has suggested Brendan Rodgers’ naivety in the transfer market could have cost Liverpool this season.

Unproven: West Ham United’s Andy Carroll (Picture: AFP/Getty Images)

Fergie’s men will face on-loan Reds striker Andy Carroll when United travel down to Upton Park on Wednesday to meet West Ham, and the Scot feels his north-west rivals have no one to blame but themselves for their summer transfer debacle.

‘They were after Clint Dempsey, that didn’t work out, and they had done the deal for Carroll,’ said the Red Devils boss. ‘Maybe it was something they did not expect.

‘With the manager being young, maybe he expected the deal to go through and then it was not there and he had lost a player, too.’Ferguson risked further angering Liverpool fans by insisting United would never be rash enough to gamble the sort of fee they shelled out for Carroll on an unproven prospect.

‘He’d played not a lot of games for Newcastle and had to deal with a £35m transfer to a club like Liverpool,’ Ferguson added.

‘He was young and it was quite a big jump for him for that kind of money. We’ve gambled on young players in the past, a couple of million, something like that.

‘But when you get to that level of £35m, you need to do a bit more homework and see how he is in the second season, maybe.

‘Now it’s up to the boy to improve himself. He’s a great header of the ball and very aggressive. He’ll be a handful on Wednesday.’